We can all have days where we feel less settled and loving towards the world around us. Perhaps we’ve seen an unsettling story in the news, maybe things are difficult with a work colleague. It can be easy to get the idea that the world isn’t a nice place, or that people are generally hostile except to friends or loved ones.
These feelings can lead to a temporary shrinkage of our warmth towards our external world, where we may find ourselves being just a little bit more guarded and protective of self, perhaps a touch cooler to others, and less generous of spirit in our interactions.
One possible way of countering these reactions to the world could be to turn away from what we fear or dislike and open our hearts to the things that we can be grateful for. The idea of gratitude has become extremely popular in recent years, particularly in the field of self-help. One well-known gratitude writer Lois Blyth puts it this way:
There is much more to gratitude than giving, receiving and saying thank you. It is a subtly positive way to gradually transform not only your world, but also the world of those around you – and beyond that, the world we all live in. ~ Lois Blyth
Beyond the idea of gratitude for the things we are aware of, the Baha’i writings remind us that no matter how bad things might seem, the truth is that we are immersed in blessings greater than we could ever imagine:
Do you realize how much you should thank God for His blessings? If you should thank Him a thousand times with each breath, it would not be sufficient because God has created and trained you. He has protected you from every affliction and prepared every gift and bestowal. ~ Baha'i Writings
Many studies have drawn a correlation between feelings of gratitude for the things in one’s life and inner wellbeing and mental health. If we feel grateful and happy inside, then we are probably more likely to extend those warm compassionate feelings to those around us. Gratitude journals have become commonplace, perhaps even a bit of a cliché, but undoubtedly helpful to some of us in making an inner shift in, what can sometimes feel like a harsh world.
One other way in which we can develop our “gratitude awareness” and thus compassion for the world around us is through the deep contemplation of an everyday item, like an item of food. Perhaps you have engaged in this interesting and enlightening exercise? It can help us to see that in fact our individual world is part of a web of interaction involving all kinds of people, that we all depend upon each other, and that all of our little selfless acts, notably when we’re working, really do make the world go round.
For example, take a simple item of food, for the purpose of this exercise let’s choose a slice of bread. You could choose anything else that you have available, the key is that it’s a humble and every-day food. Put in on the table in front of you.
Quietly and mindfully observe the appearance, the form that the bread takes. Consider how the bread has been made in order to feed and nourish you, hopefully to give you some pleasure, ultimately to keep you alive.
Let us now meditate upon the acts of service, duty or kindness that led to that bread being there, in your home, accessible to you, your family, your visitors.
Where did the wheat grow that made the bread? Was it in a vast field bathed in warm sunshine, fed by the life-giving waters of the region, think of the ears of wheat waving gently in the summer breeze, nurtured and fed by the farmer, watered by the soft rains which were in turn produced quietly and mysteriously from the surrounding lakes and oceans. When was the wheat harvested? Who by? Where are they now? Are they happy? Did the wheat come from the Ukraine area and if so how are the lives of those people now in light of recent events?
What other ingredients are there? Depending on the variety of bread, yeast probably would have been added during manufacture. Yeast is a mysterious one-celled organism, with the ability to bring bread to life with different flavours and textures. A small miracle in itself!
Maybe you picked up the bread from the shop, but how did it get to the shelf? Who put it there? Perhaps on the surface a humble shop worker, but beneath that a mother, a son, somebody’s hero, or perhaps anything but? What is their story, how did they come to work in that shop? Did they ever dream of doing something else?
How about the delivery of the bread? It was brought to the shop by a driver, perhaps driving through a rainy night on a busy schedule, perhaps preferring to be with his or her family but no, they had to drive that night, unknowingly helping get the bread to your table. Maybe they had no idea what was in the back of the lorry, maybe they didn’t care? Does anyone care about them? If not, why might that be?
The lorry crossed a bridge across a river, how long has the bridge stood? Who built it, could they do it safely with modern methods and standards or were workers injured or killed in the process? What sacrifices were made by them and their families, and who else has benefitted as a result, apart from you?
This inter-connected chain could be contemplated indefinitely, and we all have more important things to do than enter into this thought process every time we make a sandwich!
For those of us with a faith in a higher power, this feeling of gratitude can extend to our very existence, our breath and the body we inhabit. Whatever your belief may be, there is an undeniable reality about this idea, the fact that everything around us has been brought together by fellow human beings exercising acts of care and duty, ultimately expressions of kindness and love, so that they can live a life with some meaning, and this meaning may have brought positive things to our lives too.
And we can also take some comfort in knowing that, as a member of society, no matter how young or old, or how humble our role, somehow and in some way we must have helped a great many people through our love, our interactions, our work or perhaps just through a friendly word or a smile, in ways that we will never know or understand, not in this life at least!